Over the past ten years this review of deals and startup activity was telling the story of first pioneers, cambrian explosion and exponential growth.

This year we entered a new era, of stability and predictability, which brings new challenges.Startup ecosystem has demonstrated it is scaled, able, eligible, impactful.

In the next ten years, we need to focus on identification and implementation of appropriate legislative support and proper tracking of activity.

Enough help, entrepreneurs can take it from here.

We have found our benchmark Investments in start-ups from 2005 to 2016

After phenomenal 2015, last year was a slight step-down, but still impressive - Slovenian founders have raised almost $100M worldwide. We will predict that $100M +/- $20M is a new standard for Slovenian startups.

Investments value

Number of investments

Top Deals of 2016

Urban Mining Company

6/15/2016 - Financing round

$25,000,000

Layer

Financing round

$15,000,000

Iconomi

10/7/2016 - Crowdfunding

$10,576,227

Undisclosed

Financing round

$10,000,000

Emotech

8/9/2016 - Financing round

$10,000,000

$ Value Of Deals By Type

# Number Of Deals By Type

Healthy mix of large and small deals

under $50.000

$335,291

17 investments

$50.000 - $150.000

$2,065,165

24 investments

$150.000 - $1M

$5,828,338

13 investment

$1M - $10M

$16,970,000

7 investments

over $10M

$70,576,227

5 investments

Bravest Startups of 2016

Only 6 startups picked up their bags and went to foreign accelerators to learn new skills and develop new networks. We salute them.

Lock and Charge

World Startup Factory

Hague, Netherlands

Viar

9 mile labs

Seattle

Homey

Innova Memphis

Memphis, Tennessee

Sentinel

Impact Accelerator

Spain

Zenodys

Techfounders

Munich, Germany

Prospeh

H-Farm

Italy

Only 5% of capital comes from Slovenia

(this shows where the investors are)

But 25% is invested into Slovenia

(this shows where the startups are)

Slovenian startups are very diverse

We started tracking more technological platforms, specifically because it turned out that Slovenian startups are incredibly up-to-date when it comes to technology trends. Hardware was big hit last year for Slovenian entrepreneurs, with almost half of all funds raised, with machine learning and blockchain taking most of the rest.

Primary Technology Platform

Primary Industry

All Time Leaderboard

Since 2005, 258 startups raised over $350M in over 400 transactions. Some founders have raised multiple rounds by now, experiencing different types of capital, while other are just starting. Unpublicized deals amounted for a third of all funds raised in 2016, and one half since 2007.

Rock-stars

(raised over $10M)

Lyst

Layer

Uniplaces

Urban mining company

iconomi

bellabeat

Celtra

bitstamp

elaphe

emotech

zemanta

+ stealth startups

Top-Tier (>$1M)

goopti

4th office

Flaviar

solviol

sphericam

Visionect

Mimovrste

databox

Azumio

Iddiction

Iptvbeat

citadela

kosei

Reveel

Trainers4me

DoubleRecall

ipd med

orpe

bia separations

Mountvacation

1nadan

eurosender

flykly

TMG-BMC

TAB Systems

gnowbe

+ stealth startups

Next Generation (>$150k)

goat story

mesi

Connet

iTIVI

Codeable

CubeSensors

ulu.io

Sipa Boards

Apartmaji.com

Fieldoo

Facility

mediately

Vox.io

maglev

Viberate

ZivaDynamics

Lumu

chipolo

kaymu

kinestika

pipetop

cashila

povio

booxscale

nizkocenovci

Xvida

adora

doctrina

Borza terjatev

Red Pitaya

carlock

45HC

Scoutee

Ondu

Adeption

Prospeh

blockr.io

Calypso Crystal

Modri Planet

Vastok

Ponika

Optilab

Enikam

Viar

DS meritve

Medicoapps

NEXT

Povezani

squrb

zenodys

trickytribe

+ stealth startups

Legislation Challenges for Growing Startups

After years of working with startups, multiple legislative issues remain unadressed, but at least they are becoming apparent to the community. Ales Spetic wrote a good overview of all topics that need to be improved in order to get Slovenia to next level as startup-friendly country. Here is the summary, but everyone should read the source. And then demand these things improve.

Process Problems

Physical presence of investor required

Company can't buyout inactive founders

Small funds and syndicates are illegal

Tax Problems

Capital reinvestments are not encouraged

Stock options are prohibitively expensive

Business Problems

Unclear process for foreigners w/ FURS and others

Employment of foreigners is hard

Labor rules and regulations too complex for small companies

“

...and that is why on average 100 mio EUR of capital that could be invested into Slovenia anually flows elsewhere. Unfortunately in the hands of young Slovenian entrepreneurs that leave with it...

This infographic was created by Silicon Gardens community. Startups founded by Slovenian founders were included in the analysis. Data was collected through interviews, crowdsourcing and public information. Big thanks to all who contributed the information!

Numbers crunched by @igzebedze, design by @zemanta and Primoz. Built on the backend of dealbook.co, implemented for Slovenia by D-Labs.

We have taken reasonable measures to ensure accuracy. Works only in browsers of this age.